


For What You Dream Of

by Jane St Clair (3jane)



Category: Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Canonical Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-08
Updated: 2011-08-08
Packaged: 2017-10-22 09:57:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/236809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3jane/pseuds/Jane%20St%20Clair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obi-Wan pauses while on the run from the Empire (pre-A New Hope, but ignoring Episodes II and III).  BlueGhost!Qui-Gon pays a visit.  Darkish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For What You Dream Of

He was cold.  He'd been cold for weeks.

The night air was temperate, in fact, and a few years ago he  
wouldn't have reacted to it at all.  But he'd been running since  
he left Amidala on Alderaan.  He hadn't slept, or eaten enough;  
he'd lost what little insulating fat his Jedi-trained body had  
previously sustained him with.  He didn't even remember to be  
hungry anymore.  Just kept moving, in and out of shadows,  
occasionally leaving a small trail to ensure that his stalker  
didn't abandon the pursuit.

In the reflection of a shop window, he caught his reflection.    
The baby-roundness that had marked his face long into knighthood  
was gone.  He was all brows and cheekbones, now; his eyes almost  
vanishing into the cavern the two bone features created.  His  
nose and ears, which had never been noticeable before, pushed  
starkly away from his face, exposed by his thinness and  
close-cut hair.  The image he made frightened even him.  He  
wasn't surprised that the few late-evening pedestrians who  
spotted him crossed unobtrusively to the other side of the  
street.  His desperation had to be carved across his skin.

He'd promised himself that Vader wouldn't find them.  He'd  
staggered into Amidala's throne room with burns running up both  
his forearms and dragged her bodily off the throne.  She'd  
thought he was insane.  For three months, she'd been grieving for  
the husband who'd fallen into fire and supposedly died, and in  
the most recent weeks she'd even been able to get up and  
function.  He supposed that not even a quarter of her court had  
yet realized that she was pregnant.  The gowns hid her abdomen,  
and so early in the term she was barely showing.  She'd stood  
across from him, though, with both arms wrapped across her belly,  
and Obi-Wan's had thought of all the horrors that might come to  
her and the unborn one if he didn't protect them.

For ten hours he'd raved, and in the end she'd only believed she  
was in danger because she could see that the forests below Theed  
were on fire.  Even when they were running for the ship, she'd  
insisted that Anakin would never hurt her.  Sitting on the floor  
at her feet while the ship took off, he'd tried to explain that  
it wasn't Anakin, not really, only a sick thing formed from the  
remains of Anakin Skywalker's body who knew everything that  
Anakin Skywalker had known.

He'd taught that thing everything it knew.  It made him sick.

In the dark, after he'd eased her into Force-assisted sleep, he  
leaned against the wall and cried.  For her, for his lost student  
and friend, for himself and what he was going to have to do.

Bail Organa was a good man and an old friend, and he accepted the  
pregnant queen into his household with only a quick glance that  
revealed his own fear.  Organa had seen the thing called Darth  
Vader already, when Palpatine had brought his armies to Coruscant,  
and he was smart enough to be afraid.  Amidala wasn't with him,  
not officially.  Officially she'd never left Naboo.  So she might  
be safe enough, as long as the Sith weren't looking for her.

He made sure that Vader's attention was elsewhere by making  
himself a target.  The thing that had been his padawan-learner  
seemed more than satisfied to focus its energies on running one  
emaciated Jedi Master to ground.  Right now Obi-Wan was a little  
ahead.  He had a few hours to rest before he needed to start  
arranging his next transport.  Again he wished he'd been more  
gracious when Organa had given him the money he needed to keep  
his end of the chase up.  That gift was his edge.  Someday he was  
going to owe his friend a very big favour in return.

He just wished he wasn't so cold.

In the blocks around the spaceport, there were a half-dozen inns  
that catered to illegal operators and to the desperately poor.    
He had a room in one, on the third floor.  The two flights of  
concrete-enclosed stairs were barely lit, and graffiti was  
spattered across the walls in a half-dozen different colours of  
paint and something he suspected might be blood.  Racist slurs,  
random obscenities, the occasional political slogan.  Abuse  
heaped on the parentage of various beings.  Words that raged  
against poverty and powerlessness.

His room was tiny, just wide enough for him to step past the  
narrow bed to the washbasin.  His Force-sense screamed at the  
number of things alive in the running water.  If he'd been less  
tired, he would have taken the time to purify it, but now he  
was willing to go to bed dirty rather than give up the energy.

Under his cloak, he was wearing a spacer's jump-pants and  
sweater.  Both came off with a little effort, and he was able to  
wrap the cloak around himself again and crawl into bed with his  
'saber clutched against his chest.  Tried to gather enough  
serenity around himself that he could actually rest.  He hadn't  
had time to meditate properly in almost two weeks, and the  
compounding nervous energy left him twitchy even when he was  
exhausted.  Eventually, he had to settle for drifting.  Letting  
his body rest and his attention wander.

. . . the palace at Theed.  Somewhere in the state records, there  
was a holo of the three of them in the queen's presence chamber.    
Amidala presiding over the court with a Jedi knight on either  
side of her.  Anakin's entire being had been focussed on her.    
He'd loved her so much.  Obi-Wan, seated on the other side, her  
left, was almost a mirror-image of the young knight.  Both of  
them still delicately blond, Obi-Wan only a little wider in the  
jaw.  He was smiling, but unfocussed.  He'd been drifting then,  
too.  Reaching as he always did for the dead man that he was sure  
must still be present in the palace on some level.  In fifteen  
years, Obi-Wan had never sensed a trace of him, but he hadn't been  
able to let go of the compulsion to reach . . .

. . . standing before the Council and shaving his head.  It had  
been his last ceremonial act before they'd evacuated the Temple  
and he'd gone to Naboo to find the Queen.  The long hair had  
marked him as a Jedi Master, and it wasn't an honour he deserved.    
He'd trained one Padawan, and done it badly, and his student had  
finally turned.  He supposed it could have been predicted.  Like  
Master, like Padawan . . .

. . . big fingers rubbing the back of his neck, running over his  
Padawan braid, telling him that not all the evils of the world  
were his fault . . .

"They aren't, Padawan."

He came awake too fast; it felt like falling.  His awareness  
jolted into his body sickeningly hard.  The adrenaline rush  
pushed him out of bed and across the room, so that his back was  
against the washbasin and he finally had room to ignite his  
'saber.

Without a visible opponent to sustain it, though, the fight-or-  
flight response drained away too fast and his knees gave.  Decided  
that he might just stay there, buried in his cloak, until  
daylight.  Or maybe for several millenia.

He only gradually became aware of fingers stroking the back of  
his neck again, and even once he'd recognized it, the gesture was  
so non-threatening that he couldn't pull himself together enough  
to look up.  Slowly, the stroking ranged farther out, petting his  
scalp and his shoulders, his too-vulnerable naked back.  He was  
gathered up and held and rocked, and it was so easy to just lean  
into that touch and rest.  For the first time in days he wasn't  
cold.  The touch was warm, and it smelled so good.  Qui-smell in  
the midst of this filthy place.  Luminous Jedi-skin against his.    
The Force around him was electric in a way it hadn't been in  
years.

"Shhh.  It's all right, Obi-Wan.  You can rest.  You've been  
very, very brave, and I promise you'll be safe until morning.    
Relax, let go, let me take care of you . . ."

It was everything he wanted to hear, but lately he'd learned not  
to trust his desires.  Instead of letting go, he dragged his eyes  
open, needing to know what had caught him in such a vulnerable  
position.

Luminous flesh.  Blue tinge in it and a strange shimmer in the  
Force around it.  He pulled away again, scrambled back across the  
small space, almost naked and utterly without dignity.  Blue  
flesh, blue hair, indigo eyes.

Qui-Gon.

"Master."  After all these years, he still had a child's accent  
when he said it.  Pulled himself to his feet with as much dignity  
as he had left and wrapped the robe around his nakedness.

Qui-Gon only watched him.  So still, kneeling there as if he were  
still mortal, looking compassionate enough that Obi-Wan could  
almost believe that the man could still regret things, as if he  
hadn't achieved the perfect, fucking serenity of the Force.    
Turning that poor-Padawan look on Obi-Wan.  Where in Sith hells  
had he been when any of this could have been prevented?  When  
Obi-Wan was still carrying through on the promise he'd made to  
train Anakin Skywalker.

An enamel pan, oddly pretty and meant to be used for washing, was  
the only thing within reach, so he threw it.  Hurled it with all  
the force left in his arm at the apparition sitting serenely beside  
the washbasin.  It passed through him, as Obi-Wan had  
intellectually known it would, and cracked when it hit the wall.    
He decided he didn't care.  He'd been angry for months, and without  
meditation he hadn't had any way to give that anger up.  The  
Sith-be-damned ghost was a legitimate target, finally, and loosed  
everything he had at it.

He'd thrown the only thing within reach, but he screamed every  
curse he knew.  Spit blame and rage at Qui-Gon in a dozen  
languages, laid responsibility for the situation at his door, at  
the Council's, at the Force's, at his own.  The filthy place  
absorbed his voice so easily.  And Qui-Gon only watched,  
shimmeringly serene, until Obi-Wan's strength gave out and he let  
himself fold onto the bed.

When Qui-Gon came to him this time, he didn't resist.  Buried  
himself in his own robe and the blue shimmer and didn't think  
about how his Master's body could be both insubstantial and  
comfortingly solid.

"I want it not to hurt anymore."  Barely whispered.  Qui-Gon's  
presence surrounded him and folded outward, until it was all he  
could sense.  Folded warmth around him, waited for him to stop  
trembling.  Then arms came, and a body to support his own.  He  
hadn't been held like this since he was a Creche-child.

Fingers petted him.  The touches ran up his arms and legs,  
delicately over his torso, traced his face and neck.  It was the  
same comfort-contact he would have been offered after a nightmare  
when he was a child.  It reassured him that he was safe, and that  
he was beautiful and precious, cherished and gifted, of the  
Light, meant to be Jedi.  That he was exquisite and longed for.

Lips on his electric in the dark.  One big hand cupped the back  
of his almost-naked skull and massaged gently, pushing the blood  
though it and teasing him into something like relaxation.  He'd  
forgotten how huge Qui-Gon was.  The shimmering body covered him,  
making a cage of arms and torso that blocked out the room's  
filthiness and desperation.  Locked him in, held him down, and  
kissed him more and more deeply.  He tried to pull back, just  
once.  Gain his bearings, reassess the situation, but the arms  
around him wouldn't let go.

"Hush, Obi-Wan.  Let the Force give this to you."  A faint touch  
in his mind, and he could feel the Force opening around him the  
way it ordinarily only did in deep meditation.  Felt the Moment  
and the Force's gratitude for his willing suffering.  How to  
reward him, it had given him back the man he'd adored and lost  
half his lifetime ago.  To protect him until he was strong  
enough again.

He didn't understand why that should hurt so much.  "You didn't  
choose to come, then?"

Qui-Gon sighed.  "Choose is a misleading term.  I was offered the  
ability to come to you now.  If it had been left to my discretion,  
I might have chosen to come sooner."  He pressed a kiss to  
Obi-Wan's temple.  "I did not leave you alone because I didn't  
love you."

The statement broke the last of his armour.  He pressed himself  
up into that mouth, kissed it demandingly.  Wrapped himself  
around Qui-Gon's increasingly material body.  He should have  
had more dignity.  He was, in spite of his own grief, a Jedi  
Master and a middle-aged man.  It had been more than a decade  
since he'd last offered himself up like this, naked and  
straddling a lover's lap like a Corellian whore.  But all he  
could think was that he'd forgotten it could feel so good.  His  
robe was still around his shoulders, protecting him from the  
chill, but his chest was bare and his cock was bare and he was so  
hard, harder than he could ever remember being.  He'd be  
satisfied just to be cradled by those arms while he rubbed  
himself to completion against his Master's tunics.

Laughter chuffed in his ear.  "Patience, pretty one."  Qui-Gon  
stilled him, then caught his face in both hands.  Bent a little  
and kissed along his jawline from ear to ear.  The beard tickled,  
and he found himself struggling against the grip on his face and  
laughing.

He'd missed this so much.  He hadn't had a lover in years.  He'd  
trained Anakin, they'd fought together in the War, this crisis  
had come up, that crisis.  In the intervening time, he hadn't  
found anyone to match him as well as his Master did.  He could  
almost forget that they'd never had this in life.  In a dozen  
years of training, Qui-Gon had gifted him with unnumbered kisses  
and embraces, but only once the brush of the lips had been that  
of a lover, and the possibility hadn't been one they'd had time  
to explore.  But he could pretend, so easily, that this was the  
opportunity he should have pursued when he was twenty-five.  And  
Qui-Gon would let him, would call him pretty, would let him  
believe he wasn't aged and brittle and skeletally thin.

When Qui-Gon laid him down, Obi-Wan let himself move with the  
gesture.  He rested on his back and tried to watch his Master,  
but Qui-Gon shifted for an instant, and when he came back into  
focus his clothes were gone.  Only the cloak was still there,  
framing his chest and abdomen and pulling Obi-Wan's attention to  
the cock that rose away from that body.  Hard, dark, big in a way  
that he'd barely remembered.  The older Jedi waited until Obi-Wan  
met his eyes before setting beside him.  Patient.  Perfectly  
serene and of the Light.

The image broke a moment later when Qui-Gon plunged down and  
pressed him fiercely into the thing mattress.  He was pinned,  
shaking again, wanting to get loose and to pull that warmth and  
pleasure into him.

He let go, finally, and let Qui-Gon shape him.  Big hands  
arranged his body, spread his legs, stroked his belly and his  
cock.  Qui-Gon's beard scraped a little as he kissed the inside  
of Obi-Wan's legs and licked his knees and hip-hollows.  Fingers  
brushed just under his balls, running electric pleasure up him.

Force-tendrils reached under, stroking that place and lower, so  
that they finally traced over his asshole and settled there.    
For long minutes, they caressed the thin skin while Qui-Gon's  
breath warmed his cock but never quite touched it.  He wanted to  
reach down and give some sort of pleasure in return, but only  
Qui-Gon's shoulders were within reach, and he had to content  
himself with locking both fists in the Jedi robe that pooled  
around his Master's body.

Felt so good to be naked like this and protected.  Their cloaks  
together replaced the armour he'd had to give up to let Qui-Gon  
this close to him.  He twisted a little under the caresses,  
wanted something -- more, deeper, anything touch that could  
intensify the pleasure twisting up him.

He got it, finally, a slow, deep penetration by the Force-  
tendrils that had teased him for so long.  Qui-Gon had shifted  
again to kneel between his legs, and now he lifted Obi-Wan's  
calves up, exposing him.  Bent down, taking the legs onto his  
shoulders, and mouthed Obi-Wan's scrotum gently.

Softly, "You shouldn't tease me."  It sounded more fragile than  
he wanted it to, but he wasn't sure how much of this he could  
take without shattering.

Qui-Gon only straightened, though, and arranged Obi-Wan's body  
around his own so that he could bend completely and kiss his  
Padawan.  So sweet to be touched like that, skin to skin the  
whole length of his torso.  Being kissed so deeply he thought Qui-  
Gon would swallow his heart.  He thrashed under the larger man's  
weight, begging for the gentle stretching to end, for Qui-Gon to  
*take* him before he broke completely.

"It's all right, my Obi-Wan.  Breathe with me now."  And Qui-Gon  
offered him air, impossibly warming, that led him down into an  
almost perfect relaxation, so that he accepted the first thrust  
with a whimper rather than a howl.

So good.  He'd never been this stretched, no previous lover had  
pushed him this far.  Used his knees to grip his lover's body so  
he couldn't pull away.  It was good, it was hard, it burned.  He  
needed it this deep.  The strokes over his prostate pushed him to  
answer the thrusts with a rhythm of his own, bucking up each time  
so that he could take Qui-Gon deeper.  Qui-Gon wouldn't let go of  
him, clung with his mouth and his arms and the armour of his cloak  
around them.  Warming him from the inside.  One hand released his  
shoulder, finally, and slid between them, gripped Obi-Wan's cock  
and stroked him in counter-rhythm to the thrusts.

Obi-Wan found himself begging for more.  Begging not to be left  
alone again.  Over and over, "Please Master, please Master,  
please Master, oh please Master yes, oh please, yes Master so  
good, please, please, please . . ."

"It's all right, Padawan.  I said I would guard you and I will.    
Let go."

Qui-Gon shifted just a little and angled the next thrust so that  
it caught Obi-Wan's prostate fully and sent light-flares off across  
his vision.  One thumb brushed the hyper-sensitive patch just  
below his glans and he was gone, screaming and begging and finding  
that in orgasm he could finally release the worst of the rage he  
was carrying.

He could feel Qui-Gon channel the pent-up emotion away from them.    
The Force absorbed it without flinching.  Without the rage  
binding him, he could relax and cling to the larger body while  
Qui-Gon eased him down, kissed him deeply, and flooded warmth  
into him accompanied by whimpers of ecstasy that must have been  
his own orgasm.  He was warm enough, finally, and protected.  
Nothing hurt.

For a long time afterward, Qui-Gon lay just to the side of him,  
keeping them both wrapped up and petting him softly.  Whispering  
nonsense comfort to him.  Obi-Wan curled up a little,  
instinctively matching his own body to the line of his Master's.  

He must have slept, but he didn't remember it.  He remembered  
waking and being watched by indigo eyes within a field of  
shimmering blue.  Force-energy crackled in the corners of the  
almost-light room.

Obi-Wan said, "I reached for you every night and you weren't  
there."

Qui-Gon nodded.  "I know."

He sat up and started to gather his things.  "I have to go."    
Urgency rising in him.  "Vader will be here soon."  Paused and  
looked across.  His Master's form was less visible as the light  
increased.  "I'm going to lose you again, aren't I?"

The ghost stilled and focussed on him.  "Possibly."

Obi-Wan looked up from his dressing.  "I don't understand."

Long, slow breath. "There are different possibilities.  If you  
serve the Light at the expense of your own desires, it offers you  
certain rewards."

"You make it sound so mercenary."

Quiet Force-laughter, almost inaudible.  "I tend to be blunt,  
even now.  But you may want to consider whether my company is  
adequate reward for years of suffering."  Insubstantial touches  
on his face.  "I wouldn't have chosen this life for you,  
Padawan."

He nodded.  "I know.  I love you too."  Shouldered his bag and  
turned towards the almost-faded image.  "Master."  Pause.    
Silence.  "Thank you."

Nothing answered him.

He went out and down the stairs.  Someone was curled up in the  
bottom of the stairwell, weeping softly.  Obi-Wan reached out  
reflexive to offer comfort, but the body jerked away from him and  
continued crying.  Outside, the dawn was coloured with a toxic  
chemical mix.  Still, it was sunlight.  He had to find a ship,  
keep moving.  When he spread his awareness out now, he could feel  
Vader approaching.  Good.  Let the twisted thing chase him and  
not harm innocents.

He padded to the spaceport, still dirty and anonymous and  
frightening to the more prosperous passers-by.  Wondered what  
they might think if they knew he had a lightsaber concealed under  
the hem of his sweater.  Wondered if they had any conception of  
what they'd lost in the past months.  He twisted around to look  
at the sky, wondering why his heart was so light.


End file.
